The subject of this invention is a hygiene instrument, also called hereinafter polisher, for cleaning and polishing the surface of the teeth and/or the composite materials of dental fillings, the instrument or polisher being designed to be used by private individuals as well as by practitioners of dental art.
One knows that correct maintenance of the teeth consists of daily elimination of dental plaque and food debris from the surface of the teeth and from the spaces between the teeth by careful brushing, followed by the use of instruments used only once, such as toothpicks made of wood, plastic, or bird feathers; single tufted brushes; bottle brushes or dental floss.
However these instruments are not satisfactory.
The sticks, commonly called toothpicks, are made of wood or bird feathers and are not hygienic, they break easily, and they are traumatic to the gums; if made of plastic they are simultaneously too thick and too flexible and don""t easily pass between the teeth.
Dental floss, made of silk or nylon materials, is efficient but has problems in crossing the point of contact of the teeth if these latter are too close from each other, and it shreds and remains stuck between the teeth, provoking immediate discomfort. The small brushes and the bottle brushes cannot be used when the spaces between the teeth are narrow, and their high cost is an obstacle to their regular use.
Dental professionals, dentists and hygienists must eliminate deposits, stains, and discolorations of the tooth surface and have, for the cleaning and polishing of the teeth and fillings made of composite materials, a vast array of instruments and devices, such as rotating brushes, instruments to remove tartar, ultrasonic instruments, air-polishers, or also abrasive strips or discs.
However, these instruments present the following drawbacks:
The rotating brushes, used with a cleaning powder, possess a very significant abrasive power which leads to excessive abrasion of the raised tooth surfaces.
The instruments made of stainless steel that remove tartar only act at their points of contact with the tooth and are time and attention demanding, which leads to an elevated cost for a well done job.
Ultrasonic instruments have an end that is too large to go into small fractures.
Air polishers, which work like a micro-sandblaster by projecting a powder at a supersonic speed, unpolish the enamel, and consequently require a careful repolishing of the teeth with another otherwise adapted powder because in the absence of such a repolishing the surface of the teeth very quickly retarnishes.
Abrasive strips, made of fabric or plastic covered with an abrasive glue, introduced between the teeth and moved in a backwards and forwards movements are supposed to polish the proximal sides of the teeth, which requires the practician to hold the bands between the two fingers at each end in the oral cavity: this uncomfortable position does not allow one to correctly guide the strip to make it to conform to the shape of the proximal surface of the tooth. In addition, during, this movement, if this extremely fine strip comes into contact with the gums, it can cut them like a razor and furthermore the strip loses its abrasive coat very quickly, which causes it to unglue itself while crossing over the contact point of the teeth if the teeth are sharp and/or very close from each other.
The abrasive disks, mounted on rotary instruments, are disks of a small diameter made of a plastic material covered with an abrasive material which cut the gums and cannot penetrate the space between the teeth.
Finally, in a dental office, the difficulty, during the finishing and polishing of fillings made of a composite material, rests in the creation of a composite-tooth seal without excess while being perfectly polished. There still is a problem of access and of instrumentation more or less imperfectly adapted and not giving total satisfaction.
The goal of this invention is to remedy the drawbacks of existing instruments by proposing an instrument or polisher, with a low cost price, which allows the cleaning and polishing of dental surfaces; which can be used by professionals as well as private individuals.
The instrument or polisher for cleaning the surface of the teeth is created in the shape of a rod and is characterized essentially by the structure of the rod which comprises fibers and optionally a load of particles embedded in a resinous matrix, the structure giving the working surface of the rod a continuous abrasive power effect and the rod being rigid.
In a first embodiment of this invention, the rod is made only of abrasive fibers embedded in a resinous matrix and is rigid.
In a second embodiment of this invention, the rod is made of abrasive fibers and a load of abrasive particles and is rigid, and the abrasive function created by the fibers or by the particles can be the same or different according to the choice of fibers and particles.
In a third embodiment: of this invention, the structure of the rod is created from non-abrasive fibers and abrasive particles embedded in a resinous matrix, the fibers only giving the rod solidity and the rod is rigid.
The structure of the rod can contain, in addition, a nucleus, made of a metal, a resin or a composite material, of a same or different type from the material forming the rod, and of the same or a different color.
The particles of the load allow, depending on their type, their shapes, their dimensions, and/or their quantity, to make varying the abrasive effect of the instrument, these particles, having preferably a hardness between 3 and 10 on the MOHS scale and a size between 2 and 25 microns, preferably between 14 and 25 microns, most preferably of 20 microns. The particles can be of the same size or have different sizes in order to diminish the interstitial spaces between adjacent particles and in order to promote regularity of the abrasive effect. The load of these particles can vary from 10 to 70% of the weight of the resin.
The particles of the load incorporated into the resin during the fabrication process, of the instrument or polisher i.e. by extrusion, coextrusion, or casting by compression, transfer-compression, injection or pultrusion, allow one to obtain the researched viscosity to promote the sliding of the resin during the polymerization in the dies or in the molds. The particles of the load can be made, according to the method of production of the invention""s instrument or polisher to be obtained;
on one hand of materials with an abrasive power, such as calcium carbonate, calcined clad/, silica, glass or ceramic microspheres, aluminum oxide, such as alumina or even corindum, cerium oxide, tin oxide and mixtures or analogs thereof;
on the other hand of a material which does not possess an abrasive power but has a function of softening the abrasive effect procured by the fibers such as clay or hydrated kaolin, talc, or even Teflon(copyright) powder;
or a mixture of the two preceding material types.
According to the invention, the fibers can be continuous or not, parallel or not, or assembled, for example, in the shape of coils, braids, or links.
When hardened, the resinous matrix gives rigidity to the polisher of the invention.
Still according to the invention, the proportion of the volume of fibers will be preferably from 45 to 65% of the total volume of the fibers plus the resinous matrix and the fibers can be glass fibers and notably AR glass fibers. The most preferably the fibers are made of a glass which is enriched with zirconium oxide. They can also be quartz fibers, silica fibers, carbon fibers, or synthetic fibers, preferably aramide fibers such as Kevlar(copyright) fibers and will have a diameter of between 2 and 25 microns, preferably of between 14 and 25 microns and most preferably of 20 microns.
In the first preferred embodiment of the invention, the fibers are fibers made of a glass which is enriched with zirconium oxide. These fibers give the instrument or polisher a very good resistance to acidic and/or alkaline agents and make the instrument detectable by electromagnetic radiation and, notably by X-rays, i.e. by a mere and common medical radiography.
In the second preferred embodiment of the invention the fibers are fibers made of aramide, such as Kevlar(copyright). These fibers enable to obtain a working surface, i.e. a polishing surface, of the instrument or polisher of the invention, with a felt texture. In this latter case, the aramide fibers do not have any polishing function but they have the function to give the polishing surface of the polisher of the invention a felt texture and also they act as a rigid skeleton in the polisher of the invention. Consequently, in this embodiment, it is necessary to add abrasive powders either in the resin matrix of the polisher of the invention or onto its polishing surface. Such preferred abrasive polishing powders are powders of inorganic materials such as tin oxide or cerium oxide or alumina and mixtures or analogs thereof.
The resinous matrix will be made of thermohardening polymer resins or thermoplastic polymer resins and, preferably, of epoxy or polyester resins and gives rigidity to the polisher of the invention.
The instrument or polisher of the invention can furthermore comprise surface treating agents, such as titanates, zirconates, or preferably silanes, in order to increase the adhesion of the particles to the resin.
The structure of the instrument or polisher according to the invention thus enables one to give the polisher the fineness required to access the tightest spaces between the teeth, without risk of fracture and without danger for the teeth or the periodontal area, as well as all the desired shapes to conform to the dental surfaces as-closely as possible.
In addition, the structure of the instrument or polisher according to the invention gives it a permanent abrasive power, because the abrasive agents are entirely a part of its structure and, as one goes along using this instrument, the working surface of the instrument or polisher always includes new sections of fibers and/or particles which insure its abrasive function.
Finally, its structure enables it to be cleaned, decontaminated, or sterilized and renders it an instrument or polisher perfectly adapted to the hygienic and bio-compatibility requirements for a use in the oral cavity.
The instrument or polisher according to this -invention thus offers to private individuals a means of hygiene and maintenance of their teeth which is efficient, easy to use, without danger, and economical, also enabling them to eliminate the stains and undesirable discolorations, even in places difficult to access, and such a polisher had no equivalent until the invention.
The instrument or polisher of this invention enables dental professionals to gain a considerable time and efficiency and gives their patients, more comfort, and better results, without any loss of their dental integrity, and at a lower cost.